Starting To Click....Now Right Before Left And Everyone Will Be Happy
25. April 2008 | en
Something in me finally clicked. A big motorcyle is no different from a little one, I have got to stop letting this bike kick my ass.
And so I had a heart to heart talk with Betty, and we came to an understanding. I want to ride her, not her ride me. She took it well, and I had to be dragged off the compound, all the fun of riding a motorcycle came flooding through again, and she went to being an extension of me rather than a large machine I was trying to maneuver.
I learned to ride in Canada after visiting Patrick in Argentina and falling completely in love with bikes. (I wrote about my experience prior to Argentina here on Empowerment 4 Women), I honestly had no idea how long I would stay in Argentina, I was half planning on having him drop me off in Chile so I could find a job teaching English there.
I did not even have gear at this point, and the first day we met up in Buenos Aires we had to invest in gear. Or at least a helmet. I still was not convinced, and so I bought the cheapest helmet I could find, figuring I was there 2 weeks tops anyway. :-P
The Green Princess Of Coolness Helmut:
Alas, it turned out to be hard, kicked in the stomach, love. Even with the baby alligators living outside of our tent.
The truth was motorcycles offered a freedom I had never had before. And having a tent rolled up and attached to the bike so that we could crash and sleep anywhere (and we did, even in the bushes behind the parking lot for the Valley of the Moon).
After the trip I was home 2 weeks and enrolled in a course so I could get my license. The major difference between Canada and Germany: In Canada you are allowed to drive once you pass your written exam with another driver. In Germany you lose all rights to your future license if you are caught doing so. And so they put you on a path that clocks in at around 2000 Euro, as you pay 45 Euro for 45 minutes for each of your 12 required lessons.
They also treat the small bikes differently than the big ones. Learning on the 125 cc and passing on it would have meant I could drive the 650. Here in Germany it does not work that way. If I want to drive a 650, I need to pass my license driving one.
And I confess, though I loved Betty I was intimidated by her. I didn’t fully trust her. Until Wednesday morning, when Patrick took the day off work to take me to the ADAC compound when no one else would be there. (As a learner of either a car or bike in Germany your only choice to practice is paying for those lessons with your instructor, or on the enclosed compounds where 100 other new learners are bouncing and bopping their cars around). Though I was going there once a week, the sight of those new learners popping their clutches and bouncing up the street hardly inspired desire to put Betty at their mercy.
And on Wednesday we had the place to ourselves, and it just clicked.
Now it really is just the count down of the lessons. I have 3 in a row on Saturday, I hope to have it all over and done with by the end of May, though my guess is that it would be wishful thinking that it will be done in time for the Horizons meeting May 22nd – 25th. Not driving my own bike. :-(
Schlagwörter:
Here there be Betty
Germany
German Motorcycle licence
Karte:
N 49° 15.420
E 9° 732.170
Erstellt am: 26. Mai 2008
